The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has conducted the first ever States’ Startup Ranking Exercise with the key objective to encourage States and Union Territories to take proactive steps towards strengthening the Startup Ecosystems within their jurisdictions. The methodology has been aimed at creating a healthy competition among States to further learn, share and adopt good practices.

The entire exercise was conducted in essence for capacity development and to further the spirit of cooperative federalism. Awareness Workshops in all States, Knowledge Workshops in leading incubators, pairing of States for intensive mentoring, international exposure visits to US and Israel and intensive engagement between the States with Startup India team, and Video Conferencing have helped many States initiate effective measures to support Startups.

DIPP consulted all stakeholders of the Startup ecosystem and came up with 7 key reform areas as the basis of the States’ Startup Ranking Framework. An online portal was launched, which was instrumental in enabling States seamlessly submit their initiatives across these reform areas.

A total of 27 States and 3 Union Territories participated in the exercise. Evaluation Committee comprising independent experts from the Startup ecosystem assessed the responses across various parameters. Many parameters involved getting feedback from beneficiaries. More than 40,000 calls were made in 9 different languages to empathetically connect with beneficiaries to get a real pulse at the implementation levels.

Results of the Ranking Exercise were announced on 20th December 2018 at a special event organized at Pravasi Bhartiya Kendra, New Delhi. 

States have been identified as leaders across various categories such as Startup Policy Leaders, Incubation Hubs, Seeding Innovation, Scaling Innovation, Regulatory Change Champions, Procurement Leaders, Communication Champions, North-Eastern Leader, and Hill State Leader.

A comprehensive National Report on the States’ Startup Ranking 2018 was also launched at the event, detailing the journey of Startup India, role of Central and State Governments, conceptualisation of the Ranking Framework, evaluation methodology, capacity development of States, assessment process, feedback from stakeholders, and the results of the exercise along with the impact it created on the States and the future Road Map.

The Ranking Exercise has been an extremely enriching and educating experience for all the participants and has demonstrated the huge impact that can be made when Centre & State work together as Team India. These results are as much a recognition of the leading States as they are a celebration of efforts made by all the States for helping innovation and entrepreneurship across the length and breadth of India.